Coming Home

Chapter 23

"You live in a dump," Alex laughed as he saw the state of my flat.

"Well, I wasn't exactly expecting company here tonight," I laughed as I tried to clean up some of the vinyls and notes lying around everywhere.

"Post Malone?," Alex said as he picked up an EP from my sofa table, "what the hell is that?"

"Upcoming rapper. He's brilliant! Lyrical genious - like you. You should give it a spin sometime!"

Alex didn't look to convinced, "Do you know that feeling you get when you can tell from just looking at a photograph that someone smells bad? Well, that's him," he said and scrunched up his nose, shooting me a disgusted look.

"You are insufferable! He's not even that old. Remember what you used to look like when you were 18?"

"The beatles hair? Yeah that was quite an era.."

"When did you decide to cut it all off?"

He shrugged, "I grew it really long first before I decided to lose it all and go from Lennon to Elvis"

"You grew it out?"

"Yeah!! You didn't know? Weird thing was that it started growing outwards instead of downwards," he said and showed me with his hands how his hair had been, "Here, let me show you a picture from the Humbug tour," he said and pulled out his phone, "Matt likes to call it the mushroom-era".
He showed me loads of pictures from their tour a few years ago. We had a good laugh at his enormous microphone-like hair, Jamie's questionale biker-beard and how neither Nick nor Matt had changed at all since they were 23.

Alex scrolled through all the pictures on his phone and found one taken just a few days after his move to London in 2006, "Shit, you've changed so much," I said as I studied the Alex I had known back then.

"Sometimes I wonder if I change with the music or if it's the music that changes with me," he pondered dreamily.

I made a gagging noise causing him to shoot me a look.

"You are so poetic and sappy," I laughed.

"Shit, if you think that's bad, you should hear some of the songs that didn't make the cut for any of the albums!"

"Like the 13th song from the new album?" I winked at him, "is that why you don't want me to hear it?"

Alex laughed, "Jamie called me up earlier and warned me that this topic might come up."

"What do I have to do to hear it?" I asked him, whilst making puppy eyes.

"You don't have to do anything. That's actually why I wanted to get out of the pub in the first place; I want you to listen to it."

"Really?"

"Really! But just so we're clear: I've decided to cut it from the album. I might revise it later on and put it on the next album, but it doesn't fit in on AM. We already have one sappy song and we can't have two. I have a reputation as a bad boy to uphold, you know!" He winked at me.

"You might look bad but I know you're a puppy on the inside," I laughed

"Hey! I'm pretty hardcore! Have you seen me on my motor bike?"

"Sing me your sappy song and let's talk about it after, yeah?"

Alex furrowed his brows and cleared his throat while running a hand through his hair, "Maybe I should just say some things first..." he hestitated, "But I actually might need a drink for that... You want one?"

"Yes please," I breathed. I hadn't given it much thought but as soon as he asked me, I could feel that I was going to need a strong drink to handle this tune.